Faith and music Soothe the pain

Graphics

It is 14 years ago, and Holly Bergk takes the field at Angel Stadium and belts out “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the voice of, well, an angel, and the confidence that makes it hard to believe she's in the fifth grade.

Blond hair past her shoulders, Bergk's voice is strong, sweet and that of a budding soprano. But few in the stands know that Bergk sings with pain streaking through her body.

As Bergk and I sit in a rose-filled yard and recall that memorable day, Bergk laughs when I say her voice has grown stronger since her baseball debut. In two days, she will leave for Nashville to explore earning a master's degree in the cradle of country music and pursuing a music career.

Why country music? It speaks to heartache, struggle, perseverance – things that Bergk knows more about than any 24-year-old should. By age 2, she had scoliosis so severe that her spine was crushing her lungs. Yet 18 operations later and still in pain every minute, Bergk lights up a sun-filled morning.

Faith can work miracles.

In video after video, Bergk takes the stage with a presence that is both commanding and comforting. When she sings “Stormy Weather” and “What a Wonderful World” with the Cal Poly Jazz Band and Carrie Underwood's “Temporary Home,” you
think Bergk might have a chance in Nashville.

But when she breaks into her own composition, “Seventeen Again,” you
believe.

She belts out “
Every time I think about you, time seems to stop for just a moment / I'm smiling, I feel like I'm 17 again.” You drift into the moment, 17 again. And that's worth the price of a download.

Bergk explains that country music is both an outlet and an inspiration. “I like the stories that delve into issues and the different things that happen. There's pain in life and joy in life.”

When did she discover she could sing? Bergk grins at the memories, many vague from anesthesia's effects and our brain's wonderful ability to tone down, repress terrible events.

But singing for Bergk has always been pure and good and clear.

“My mom jokes that she stopped singing lullabies when I joined in, telling me, ‘You were better.' ”

At age 8, Bergk started taking voice lessons. At Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, she majored in music and theater. When we talk about very early influences, Bergk blushes, giggles and admits to Britney Spears and 'N Sync. Soon, she added Celine Dion, Shania Twain.

While her father, Terry, was listening to the Beach Boys and Eagles, his daughter was graduating to LeAnn Rimes and Miranda Lambert. Still, high school was tough. But it all came together when Bergk walked into the music department at Cal Poly. “No one cared about a slightly different body type.”

Talking about Holly Bergk's childhood is one thing. Opening the three albums her mother, Janet, put together is another.

The albums are thick, heavy and each is labeled, “The bitter sweet memories of Holly's battle against scoliosis – tearfully collected.”

A child's ordeal is a family's ordeal.

The first things you see are red footies too large for a tiny tot and smiley faces on sticky electrodes that monitored Bergk during surgery to fix a hole in her heart.

Then you start poring over dozens of cards filled with prayers. One reads, “We are believing in God for remarkable healing.” But the rest of the albums, well, the rest is tough. A toddler dressed in a yellow hospital gown with a pink bow in her hair sits next to a yellow furry companion through surgery after surgery.

Pooh Bear always smiles. The little girl does not.

With 85-degree curvatures in her spine in two directions, Holly confesses she nearly died several times. She remembers the ice bath to cool rocketing temperatures. She shares what it's like to watch “The Little Mermaid” from a tiny porthole in a hyperbaric chamber.

“I grew up in hospitals,” she says. “I look at that girl in the pictures and my heart just breaks for her. It's hard to believe that's me.”

Staples and thread hold together incisions from the little girl's neck to her tailbone. They criss-cross from her back to her chest. In baggie after baggie is the reality that kept Bergk from dying, that allowed her to grow, eventually walk and become the woman of hope and ambition that she is today.

At first, the mind struggles to sort out the gray pieces that resemble an Erector Set. Then you realize this metal was
inside Bergk, part of her skeletal system – titanium screws, rods, cables, hooks.

An excerpt from her mom after her child's eighth surgery: “Holly threw up this time, causing muscle spasms and huge pain episodes. We lost control of the pain and Holly had no desire to get up or move at all.

“After we came home, the top hook popped out of the vertebrae, causing her to scream in pain. Her incision turned green.”

Finally you put the albums down, stare into space and silently ask what Bergk asked herself a thousand times growing up.

“Why would God allow this?”

Over time, Bergk found the answer to the question that most of us have asked more than once.

A sometimes angry, sometimes stoic child and teenager, Bergk started attending Calvary Church in Santa Ana. She talked to the pastors, the congregation. She found some peace but more important she found some meaning.

Now an entertainment techie at Knott's Berry Farm, Bergk admits: “Things happen and I know I can't change them. Still, I keep struggling. I have my moments.” After a setback, she sometimes looks up, smiles and asks, “Like,
really?”

But Bergk found her mission: to help others.

“From every bad thing,” she offers, “something good has to come of it. I've asked myself, ‘Can I inspire other people?' I'm on fire for this.”

Already things are falling in place, something that once seemed impossible. A few years ago, Bergk visited Kenya for three weeks, building latrines and a playground. She started writing a book about her life. And, adopted at birth, a few months ago she connected with her birth grandparents who had prayed every day for their grandchild.

Of her grandparents, Bergk exclaims, “They're elated I grew up in a great home.”

Bergk says that she and I connecting through the daughter of a friend is another marker that she's on the right path. I don't know about that. But I do know her green wristband leaves us with a lasting thought.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.